That isn’t literally true of course. We don’t work on the boat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It just feels that way sometimes.
We have been told that people follow along with us on this blog to see how our cruising life is working out. I hope they aren’t too disappointed. So far our “cruising life” has come is short spurts. Between those limited months of moving, exploring, and getting to know many new faces, have been far more months of sitting and working. For the first couple of years the sitting and working always involved family boats. Even before dropping the dock lines to go cruising we had to deal with the initial problems with the V-drive / transmission failure. When the jobs went away and we decided to call it quits on the “American way of life” there were more months of work. Even before Kintala went on the truck for the trip east; the wind vane install and a repair on the bottom faring chewed through many weeks of near constant labor.
Once in Oak Harbor we thought we were close, but then came the labor needed to get Ye Old Tartan in big water without taking on said water. Labor that included hauling the boat out of the water, dropping the rudder, and taking on a pretty ugly fiberglass repair in the tiny space under the cockpit. We threw in a rudder repair while at it, just because it seemed like a good time to fix a rudder that was split all the way across its bottom.
Our first trip south saw us holed in Oriental for a few weeks struggling with the failing fuel injection pump. We got some cruising in after that, including our first trip to the Islands with our friend John.
The summer working on the Bear came next. Months went by, working through the Florida heat. Little did I know that was a precursor of life soon to be. We did make it back to the Chesapeake, where Kintala went up on the hard and, yes, we spent many a week working on her once again. It was good work, bottom paint and some interior changes that made living on her much, much more comfortable. But it was still seemingly endless days of gazing out at the anchorage wondering when we would find our way out there again.
We did, eventually, making it to the Islands for many glorious weeks. But that cruise was followed by the first stint of being a professional boat mechanic. It was good experience, and helped revive a nearly exhausted cruising kitty. Plan all you like for “retirement,” but don’t bet on it working out that way. Issues can and will pop up, and one is left to deal with them as best as possible.
We got another stint good of cruising in after that, visiting our beloved Abaco Islands and, this time, sailing all the way around them and back to the States. Then it was back around the Keys for a second season of fixing other people’s boats. That season ended a couple of weeks ago but we are far from being on our way again. I suspect it will be at least another month before we can sail off, and I will not be surprised if that estimate proves too optimistic.
Cruising, at least in our case, is just doing the best you can to get by while living on a boat. In some ways it is a lot easier than living on land simply because it is far easier to “get by” when one isn’t burdened with cars, houses, insurances, and an endless array of “stuff” rarely used but still taking up space. But boats are labor intensive devices. The older they get the more labor intensive they become. As a life long mechanic and tinkerer my way of making peace with that reality has been to regard Kintala as a hobby as much as she is a home. So what if it takes a few more weeks to make the teak pretty and the bottom smooth? Why fret over changing pumps and plumbing, adding accumulators and inverters if, in the long run, it makes our daily living a bit more enjoyable? I spent endless hours tweaking the GXSR, working on projects out in the shop, keeping little airplanes flying, and working on houses. It helps to think of boat work as more of the same.
If our history is to repeat itself we will get “out there” again before too long. It may take a bit of effort to scrape the rust off of our sailing skills, rust acquired after months of sitting in one place. The good news is we have all of Tampa Bay to warm up in, and can take all the time we like. Until then it is...
All day, every day, working on the boat.
We have been told that people follow along with us on this blog to see how our cruising life is working out. I hope they aren’t too disappointed. So far our “cruising life” has come is short spurts. Between those limited months of moving, exploring, and getting to know many new faces, have been far more months of sitting and working. For the first couple of years the sitting and working always involved family boats. Even before dropping the dock lines to go cruising we had to deal with the initial problems with the V-drive / transmission failure. When the jobs went away and we decided to call it quits on the “American way of life” there were more months of work. Even before Kintala went on the truck for the trip east; the wind vane install and a repair on the bottom faring chewed through many weeks of near constant labor.Once in Oak Harbor we thought we were close, but then came the labor needed to get Ye Old Tartan in big water without taking on said water. Labor that included hauling the boat out of the water, dropping the rudder, and taking on a pretty ugly fiberglass repair in the tiny space under the cockpit. We threw in a rudder repair while at it, just because it seemed like a good time to fix a rudder that was split all the way across its bottom.
Our first trip south saw us holed in Oriental for a few weeks struggling with the failing fuel injection pump. We got some cruising in after that, including our first trip to the Islands with our friend John.
The summer working on the Bear came next. Months went by, working through the Florida heat. Little did I know that was a precursor of life soon to be. We did make it back to the Chesapeake, where Kintala went up on the hard and, yes, we spent many a week working on her once again. It was good work, bottom paint and some interior changes that made living on her much, much more comfortable. But it was still seemingly endless days of gazing out at the anchorage wondering when we would find our way out there again.
We did, eventually, making it to the Islands for many glorious weeks. But that cruise was followed by the first stint of being a professional boat mechanic. It was good experience, and helped revive a nearly exhausted cruising kitty. Plan all you like for “retirement,” but don’t bet on it working out that way. Issues can and will pop up, and one is left to deal with them as best as possible.
We got another stint good of cruising in after that, visiting our beloved Abaco Islands and, this time, sailing all the way around them and back to the States. Then it was back around the Keys for a second season of fixing other people’s boats. That season ended a couple of weeks ago but we are far from being on our way again. I suspect it will be at least another month before we can sail off, and I will not be surprised if that estimate proves too optimistic.
Cruising, at least in our case, is just doing the best you can to get by while living on a boat. In some ways it is a lot easier than living on land simply because it is far easier to “get by” when one isn’t burdened with cars, houses, insurances, and an endless array of “stuff” rarely used but still taking up space. But boats are labor intensive devices. The older they get the more labor intensive they become. As a life long mechanic and tinkerer my way of making peace with that reality has been to regard Kintala as a hobby as much as she is a home. So what if it takes a few more weeks to make the teak pretty and the bottom smooth? Why fret over changing pumps and plumbing, adding accumulators and inverters if, in the long run, it makes our daily living a bit more enjoyable? I spent endless hours tweaking the GXSR, working on projects out in the shop, keeping little airplanes flying, and working on houses. It helps to think of boat work as more of the same.
If our history is to repeat itself we will get “out there” again before too long. It may take a bit of effort to scrape the rust off of our sailing skills, rust acquired after months of sitting in one place. The good news is we have all of Tampa Bay to warm up in, and can take all the time we like. Until then it is...
All day, every day, working on the boat.
